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Facts don’t always match perception

Originally published in the BatesvilleDaily Guard

On Tuesday, Feb. 7, during a round table with county sheriffs from across the U.S., President Trump made the following comment:

“I’d say that in a speech and everybody was surprised because the press doesn’t like to tell it like it is,” Trump claimed. “It wasn’t to their advantage to say that. The murder rate is the highest it’s been in I guess 45-47 years.”

Sounds like the streets are no longer safe and we’d better stay out of the cities.

But, the thing is, it’s not true.

And as a journalist, facts are important to me.

We actually have one of the lowest murder rates in the last half century.

In 2015, the murder rate was 4.9 per 100,000 people.

At this point 50 years ago, in 1957, the murder rate was 4 murders per 100,000 residents. Over the next decade and a half, that rate rose steadily to a high of 10.2 in 1980, when the U.S. was much whiter and had 100 million less people.

Then it began to drop, hitting 7.4 in 1996, 6.1 in 2006 and 4.4 in 2014. It 2015 it went up to 4.9. A significant increase, but not even half of what the rate was in 1980 and still well below 1996.

But that is less than half the murder rate of 1980. The raw number of homicides in America has actually declined from 19,645 in 1996 to 15,696 in 2015, even while the population has risen from 265 million in 1996 to 321 million in 2015.

Murder is just one of the crimes categorized as “violent” by the FBI when it takes crime data. Violent crime includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The peak for violent crimes was 1991, where it was at 758 per 100,000. Now it has declined to 372.6 in 2015, less than half the peak.

Being close to 40, I am old enough to remember the “good old days” of the mid-’80s to mid-’90s when people were actually terrified of going into larger cities because of the potential to get lost in the wrong neighborhood. There was hysteria about wearing certain colors, with people being suspicious of “gangsters.” Our state capital, Little Rock, became particularly infamous at this time, largely due to an HBO documentary called “Gang War: Bangin’ in Little Rock.”

But it wasn’t just the cities that experienced elevated violence during that time. There were also several high profile events involving white nationalists too, one of which happened in Arkansas in 1985 when a member of Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord, a white supremacist, killed an Arkansas police officer, resulting in a standoff in Mountain Home. Another police killer, Gordon Kahl, was killed in neighboring Lawrence County during a shootout in Smithville in 1983. Harrison still has a reputation for this kind of activity, being dubbed “the most racist town in America” in November 2016 by the U.K. newspaper The Daily Mirror.

Even before the 1980s, the U.S. could be a nasty place. Large cities were dominated by crime syndicates operated by mobsters. Blacks in the countryside lived in fear of being lynched. Women everywhere were ignored when it came to their own spouses visiting violence upon them.

Nowadays, people actually walk on the sidewalks of downtown Little Rock, much like America’s other large cities. It’s still one of America’s most dangerous cities statistically speaking, but the perception has changed from one where people think that random strangers will be targeted for violence into one that they see the majority of violence there as being between people who know each other. Blacks can make stops in small rural towns without having to worry about “being out by sundown” as the old saying went.

All changes for the better, which leads us back where we started.

Did Trump make the claim, knowing it wasn’t true? Did he just believe what he said because he wasn’t familiar with the facts? Does he just say whatever strikes him at the moment as true?

Heck, I don’t know, I’m not a mind reader.

The only thing that really matters is that what he said is demonstratively false when one looks at statistics and evidence.

But, why does it matter?

Because facts and evidence is what our leaders are supposed to make their judgements based upon, not beliefs. If we believe that people are dying left and right, we’re going to demand that our leaders act accordingly, which leads to what is essentially taking a sledgehammer to swat a fly. On the flip-side, when we believe something is “not a big deal” we act accordingly to that too, like using spitballs to fight off bombers.

The ripple effects of that means spending too much on something, or too little. Making too few rules or too many. Who is friend and who is foe.

Without facts, we can’t find the best spot to draw the line. If we go by belief, we can essentially draw the line where ever we want.

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Tariff on Mexico will turn back the clock

Originally published in the Batesville Daily Guard

Well, it looks like there’s a plan to build “the wall.”

By “the wall” I mean the one proposed by President Trump to run the length of the border with Mexico.

Trump promised to make Mexico pay for it. Mexico, of course, responded by saying “as if!”

That threw a ratchet into the gears of the plan, though I’m not sure who expected the Mexican government to say “OK, we’ll do it!”

Up until a week ago, a lot of people believed the whole deal with the wall was going to be dropped. After all, it would be very expensive, $15-$25 billion and up to $16 million for each mile, and Mexico wasn’t going to pay for it. Most American also don’t favor it, with both Pew and Gallup finding that support from Americans as a whole was below 40 percent.

So, realistically, the wall could’ve been dropped with little repercussion to Trump. It might have actually been a chance for him to gain some ground in public opinion, which has so far shown him to be rather unpopular.

But he persisted and now he’s come forward with a plan. A plan to tax all imports from Mexico by 20 percent. Despite his claims though, Mexico still won’t be paying for the wall.

Instead, American importers will. That, in turn, means American consumers, also known as you and me.

Now, I hear some people saying “Well, we can just stop buying stuff from Mexico.”

And I’ll say, “No, you can’t.”

Mexico is our third-largest trading partner. While you many not see as many “Made in Mexico” labels as you do “Made in China” we do import billions and billions of dollars worth of goods from Mexico that we can’t avoid.

In 2015, the U.S. imported $74 billion in vehicles, $63 billion in electrical machinery, $49 billion in machinery, $21 billion in agricultural products, $14 billion in mineral fuels (especially oil) and $12 billion in optical and medical instruments. That’s only the biggest, there is lots, lots more. You know, what you’d expect from a neighbor who happens to be your third-biggest trading partner. 

So, enjoy your avocados while you can before they double in price.

Realistically, those jobs won’t “come back” (many of them weren’t here in the first place) to the U.S. Instead, they’ll just move to other countries where even a 20-35 percent tariff won’t make the imports more expensive than American goods. Americans will just keep paying more.

Plus, it would actually cost many Americans their jobs. If stores like Walmart and Costco have to pay more on imports, then they will make up the cost by cutting jobs or lowering salaries. The consumers will just wind up paying more, meaning that other parts of the economy will be hurt.

Also, trying to make Mexico fund the wall will likely result in more people trying to cross the border illegally. From 2007 to 2014, the number of undocumented people, not all of them Mexican of course, has fallen by more than a million people. Mexicans are leaving the U.S. for Mexico.

Why? Because wrecking a country’s economy can do that. 

What our president and many of his supporters don’t seem to realize is that immigration of Mexican people has actually reversed over the last few years. 

Why would they go back to Mexico, a place the president has painted as slightly more Mad Max than he has the U.S.?

Well, two reasons: The Great Recession of 2008 and the growth of the economy in Mexico. Thanks to Mexico’s growth, many Mexicans are living at a similar standing as their American counterparts across the border. 

This isn’t to say we don’t have an issue with illegal border crossings. Thousands of people make their way through Mexico from Central America (particularly Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala) every year. Some are seeking opportunity but many are fleeing crime and violence. It’s been an issue we’ve been working with Mexico on in regards to the issue because it means that they have an undocumented immigrant problem there too. This adds up to “Mexico stops working with us, both American and Mexican law enforcement lose cross-border assets and crime goes up.”

If we continue down this road, what will be the result? We’re not only going to have to pay for a wall, but we’re going to also have to expand our border patrol too because if Mexico stops working with us, we will have to pick up the slack. 

At the end of the day, though, and like the now much-circulated meme says “Problem: A $25 billion wall. Solution: $36 ladder.”

So, is it really worth it?

Note: On Thursday Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the 20 percent tariff was just an “option.” — JP

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The punch heard around the world

Originally printed in the Batesville Daily Guard

Richard Spencer: White nationalist, coiner of "alt-right" 

If you didn’t catch it, there was a new president sworn in last week.

It was followed by protests, claims by the president it was the “biggest” attendance for an inauguration ever and the entry of “alternative facts” into our lexicon.

A much-memed but less discussed event happened on the streets of D.C. though, one that could have far-reaching repercussions — the punching of Richard Spencer.

It is an incident that not only highlights the two extremes of those who call themselves “right and left” but might have also been the snowball that kicks off an avalanche.

If you don’t know who Spencer is, then all you need to know is that he’s a white nationalist who coined the term “alt-right” and likes to lead people in Nazi salutes. He’s active on social media and like most people who enjoy tormenting others, he doesn’t ever shut up. He’s the president of the National Policy Institute, a Virginia-based white nationalist “think tank.”

Spencer’s predecessor, Louis R. Andrews, said “There’s no such thing as post-racial. There’s conflict, conflict and continued conflict.”

Black Bloc tactics

Andrews also said he voted for Obama because he wanted to see the Republican Party destroyed, so it could be reborn as a “party representing the interest of white people.”

Spencer has continued the provocatory approach of Andrews. He has called for “peaceful ethnic cleansing” and has called for a sort of “white Zionism” to create a “white homeland.”

Anyway, while giving an interview after the inauguration on Friday, a person clad in black with their face hidden ran out of the street and punched him in the face, disappearing as quickly as he appeared.

A lot of people cheered because Spencer is who he is. It has even become a meme of sorts.

Taking joy in Spencer getting punched is a natural reaction. Spencer is, after all, the proponent of an ideology that reflects a dark past and ought to be shoved back into it where it belongs.

But those cheering may not be thinking of the repercussions of the action.

In a way, that punch is the best thing that could have happened to Spencer. Now he can say “we’re under attack!” That single punch may have opened the door for others to attack those who they disagree with on the street, no matter what their political leaning.

Of course, the person who attacked Spencer was an anarchist, a group that sees no legitimacy in a central government (or really any government at all), whether it be Democrat or Republican — and really, they consider both to be enemies considering their behavior during both parties’ conventions in the past.

Where ever there are large demonstrations, anarchists show up, using black bloc tactics to disguise their identities and engage in actions like property damage and now violence. They are extremists who don’t care whether or not they harm the cause the actual demonstrations are supporting. The anarchists only seem to care about fighting some ambiguous enemy via smashing windows and setting things on fire, often throwing rocks and firecrackers at law enforcement. The actions of the anarchists often distract from the message of the peaceful demonstrators, who are pretty much always the majority when it comes to protests.

No matter how much someone points out to the anarchists that they’re harming the cause they’re allegedly supporting, you’ll usually get similar responses such as rioting being a form of expression against exploitation by business or destroying the system. The general reaction when such is pointed out is usually dismissiveness or outright tirades against “useless” nonviolent protesters.

Now it seems that both sides have gotten what they wanted. Spencer’s white nationalists can now claim there’s a war against them and the anarchists can claim they took “direct action.”

I for one hope that the punch of Spencer isn’t a sign of some sort of escalation. But with the current state of American political dialogue, that’s very, very unclear. We aren’t living in some sort of dystopian society, yet. But it seems that we now have movements that want to force society to fit a certain vision. There’s no telling where a single punch could lead to.

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Changes – Politics move like a see-saw

Originally published in the Batesville Daily Guard

We are going to see a lot of changes in 2017 — changes that are going to make some people very happy, some very unhappy and others just frustrated with the process in general.

Over the last few decades, our government has become a see-saw of sorts as the two big parties, Democrats and Republicans, move away from the middle and embrace more narrow ideals of what is considered “liberal” and “conservative.” The election of 2016 drove that home with two huge personalities, President-elect Donald Trump and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, essentially becoming the human embodiments of the bases, or at least the most enthusiastic, of their respective parties.

People who live and breathe politics, particularly those who think in terms of “right vs. left” don’t have a problem with this. For them, it’s more a battle of good vs. evil and shaping the government to fit a vision instead of filling the potholes and making sure the trains run on time. It’s sort of like the “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” cliché, except instead of throwing the baby out, the argument is to either give the kid a bath in a frozen lake or a boiling kettle.

That sounds a little extreme, but we seem to be in pretty extreme times, at least politically. It seems we are rapidly approaching a chaotic time when we are going to see things built up in one election thrown out in the next and then the things built during that government are thrown out with the next. That’s not what anyone would call stability. It’s just a mess.

There’s always the talk about the need of people to support a third party, but the minor parties of the U.S. tend to have even more extreme philosophies. Americans constantly poll that they do want a third party, but none that exist really seem to offer what they want.

What do they want?

Probably some sort of calming influence, a balance of sorts.

In most democracies, there are two major parties like ours, usually center-left and center-right and a lot of fringe parties. But there are also often third parties who may not be the same size as the big two, but not as small as the fringe, that take more moderate positions and make themselves necessary for the larger parties to form a governing coalition. In a way, acting as sort of a middle weight that slides slightly to balance the board and keep it from becoming a seesaw of back and forth policies — stability you could say.

Right now, it would seem an opportune time for such a thing. The 2016 election saw the lowest voter turnout since 1996. In 1996, only 53.5 percent of voter-age Americans turned out for the election. In 2016 that number was 55 percent, much lower than 64 percent of voter-age Americans who cast ballots in 2008. Those numbers say people are either indifferent or just turned off by the current offerings.

And really, who can blame them? With people on both sides of the political aisle more interested in making pronouncements or condemnations, those who want to be outside of partisan fights are either ignored or attacked. That does not get them interested in turning out for the polls.

Of course, a viable third-party probably won’t happen anytime soon. In the U.S., third parties have a habit of not going for modest goals — like running for local, state and congressional offices — but instead seem to center around capturing the presidency.

Sure, capturing the presidency is probably the ultimate goal of any political party, but sometimes four or five people in Congress can make as big of a difference when it comes to things that affect people’s lives as well as balancing partisan ideology.

It may only be a pipe dream, but I do hope to one day see a government where there are some adults in the room.

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What did R.E. Lee ever do for Arkansas?

Why does Arkansas celebrate Robert E. Lee with a state holiday?

Why do they celebrate a guy who became the face of a group of rebel states that seceded because its wealthiest residents were afraid they'd have to set their slaves free?

Why do they celebrate him on the same day as a man who made a positive difference on the country as a whole?

That's the sort of things I wonder when we honor Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert E. Lee on the same day in Arkansas. Two contradicting characters: King lead the way forward for not only black equality, but that of other disenfranchised people too, becoming not only an American figure, but also a world one. Lee married into a rich slave owning family and fought for states who sought to keep the institution of black slavery and when the war was lost, he lent his voice to those who sought to keep blacks from voting.

It seems that it makes sense why one is honored nationally and the other is honored by only five states: Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. All of those, except Georgia, celebrate him on Martin Luther King Day. In Lee's own home state, Virginia, he is honored on the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day with Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, another Confederate general.

So why is he honored? He didn't really do anything for Arkansas, except have its able-bodied men shipped eastward to fight in Virginia. The Confederacy as a whole seemed to treat Arkansas as just a jumping point into Missouri, which it considered a prize. After it was obvious that they would never take Missouri, Arkansas was pretty much left abandoned, with invading Union forces taking most of the state with little effort. By the end of the war, Confederate Arkansas was pretty much reduced to the southwest corner of the state. By the time it was over, 10,000 Arkansans — Union, Confederate and civilian — had lost their lives.

Arkansan soldiers returned to a state that had been prosperous in the late 1850s reduced to a husk of its former self due to the war. Many of them lost everything and they went through many years of rebuilding what they had lost. In some scholars' opinions, Arkansas, like much of the south, never fully recovered from the Civil War.

Lee on the other hand returned to a largely comfortable life in Virginia, eventually becoming the president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, from 1865 to 1870. During that time Lee, along with other prominent Southerners, signed an Aug. 26, 1868, letter to Gen. William Rosecrans that opposed allowing blacks the right to vote following the Civil War.

On the other hand, almost 100 years later, King led a 1965 march from Selma, Alabama, to the Capitol in Montgomery to advocate for equal voting rights.

Now, I've heard the argument “well, if they (by “they” it's meant black people) get Martin Luther King Jr. Day then we (“we” being white people) should get Robert E. Lee Day.” That argument misses the point of honoring King. Throughout most of the country, as well as the world, King is not regarded as someone who only did things for black people. He's regarded as someone who transformed the status quo, not only helping black people on the way toward equality, but also helping change how whites see themselves in relation to minorities in the US.

Lee did none of that. Lee is seen by many as a southern icon, but in reality, the South was, and still is, more than the Confederacy. Many southerners, including Arkansans, fought and died to preserve the Union. Reducing the South to the Confederacy does it a great disservice, as it narrows what a Southerner is down to a government that existed only four years and ties that identity eternally to slavery.

Some will argue that those who don't think there should be a Robert E. Lee Day in Arkansas, especially on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day, are somehow trying to destroy their heritage. I don't see that as the case as the descendant of a Confederate soldier myself, and believe that there's a difference between remembering our ancestors and honoring a government that most of us would consider reprehensible today. We can remember acts of bravery from soldiers on both sides without having to elevate the government they fought for or try to justify the atrocities they committed. Not honoring the Confederacy will not take away from any of that.

So maybe, today will be the last time we will celebrate the two days together. But, I kind of doubt it.  

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Social media swarms don’t reflect reality

Originally printed in the Batesville Daily Guard

As we leave 2016, we leave behind a year that was ruled by Facebook and Twitter. The two social media sites had always been influential, but this year they became the heart of the nexus which includes public opinion, propaganda and information. They were places that regular people could actually say something to their leaders and just maybe get a response, whether they be national, state or local.

One consequence of this was that the whole world also had access to those officials. Sometimes it’s a good thing, sometimes it’s bad, but state boundaries are no longer a deterrent when it comes into offering opinions to state officials.

But as far as the bad, one group that has found a way to influence policy via social media are fringe groups and conspiracy theorists, who rely on insinuation and distortions instead of research and fact.

We had a case of that in Arkansas over the last week.

Rep. Karilyn Brown (R-Sherwood) filed a bill to remove religious and philosophical exemptions for vaccines when it comes to children who attend public schools in Arkansas. It did not remove the medical exemption.

Since even the Amish allow for vaccines, the religious exemption doesn’t make for much purpose. Aside from the Dutch Reform Church, there are pretty much no branches of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism or Buddhism that bar their members from taking vaccines, not even the Amish. And last I checked, I don’t think there is a single congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in Arkansas at all, much less many Dutch.

On the other hand, the philosophical exemption pretty much allow a person to not vaccinate a child for any reason they want. Whether it be the debunked “vaccines cause autism” claims, “making my kids take vaccines is communism” claim or the “natural diseases are better than modern medicine” ideas or “vaccines are mind control” conspiracy theory … they’re all equally valid in the philosophical exemptions.

They are also all equally dangerous. It bears to repeat that small pox, a disease that killed millions, has been eradicated due to vaccines. Polio, which left many people disabled, has been eliminated from most of the world, with cases in the single digits worldwide — all in third world countries. Measles, mumps and chicken pox all of which have been linked to blindness, deafness and sterility have become very rare in the U.S., at least until the last couple of years when those diseases have started making a comeback.

Those comebacks renewed calls to tighten up or eliminate exemptions for people who lacked a medical reason.

Makes sense right? People want to protect their kids.

And I’m sure Brown took note of that when she wrote her bill.

Of course, she probably didn’t expect the swarm.

When I say swarm, I mean an anti-vaccination social media group caught wind of her bill and took to her social media, leaving shrill messages accusing her of being a shill for “big pharma” to wanting to give kids autism. Most of these messages don’t seem to be from people who are in her district, or even Arkansas. I saw posts from people in Virginia, Michigan, Kentucky and a person from Los Angeles who says he works at, and I quote, “Stop Mandatory Vaccination” — which I suspect is the source for many of Brown’s comments.

I’m not sure if Brown took this into account when she withdrew the bill on Tuesday. But the same people, not from Arkansas, gave her thanks for “representing her constituents.”

Brown’s case, which is not unique, shows the power of swarms on social media. The swarms can create the impression that the majority of people are in favor of fringe beliefs, anti-vaccination movements and chemtrail belief are two examples of this, simply by drawing people from all over the country to overwhelm an account with posts. Some of these go further, giving out phone numbers and emails, leading to an endless stream of harassment.

I hope Brown will reconsider her withdrawal of HB1043 sometime in the future. We do not need to let fact-based policies that would benefit our public health brought down by a minority who just happen to have loudest mouths (er, fingertips, I guess would be more accurate). If politicians start letting Facebook and Twitter determine their actions, then we are putting our fates in the hands of anyone who is capable of combining links with the right hashtags on the internet. This may eventually cause our policies to be driven by an alternate reality which thrives online.

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